The idea of a Superman or an Übermensch was first explained to me on the way back home from seeing a few Beckett plays at UMBC. A friend’s mother tried to explain as simply as she could to a 13 year old just what one was. I liked the idea – and I mean that simply. I just liked the idea.

When I read Semisane’s node on Beyond Good and Evil, I felt some horrible sense of hope. Recently my academic advisor has been yelling at me. I’ve never been one for specialization, and he sees this as grounds for punishment. He believes I should have bypassed my independent study of Buddhism for some QualityTime of hanging out with friends, resting, relaxing, or doing work. That never appealed much to me. Not to imply I’m antisocial; I’ve found one of my greatest passions is spending time with people so as to greater understand them. I just always have felt like if I could be expanding my understanding, that would be preferable to potentially wasting away my precious hours.

When I was in sixth grade, I had to choose what foreign language I wanted to study. This was a surprisingly hard choice for me. I had decided I wanted to learn both. Upon a dialogue with someone I know who was fluent in both languages, she suggested I learn French first. She explained learning French first would give me a good basis on which to learn Spanish; it’d also get rid of learning all the spelling complexities I wouldn’t find in Spanish. So I took French. I bemoaned the lack of time to study Spanish also, much like I resented my limited selection of French or Spanish. I wanted to learn it all. Ever since I found there were some things that couldn’t be directly translated from one language to another, I decided the only way to truly understand the world would be to learn every language out there. I would read philosophical documents in their original language; I would understand the complexities and subtleties lost on the average man in translation.

Sadly, one of the first things I learned about French was that it was harder for me than for my classmates. When I first realized my difficulties, I stubbornly refused to give up. Maybe I’d have to work one hundred times harder than John, Rebecca, or Dan – it’d be worth it. I would be able to read L’Étranger, La Peste, La Nausee, L'Etre et le Neant and that would make it all worth it. I’d move on to Latin and Germen. I’d learn Ancient Greek. I’d reach out and try to grasp everything I could.